IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/uctcwp/qt3xk9j8m2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Factors Influencing Transit Ridership: A Review and Analysis of the Ridership Literature

Author

Listed:
  • Taylor, Brian D.
  • Fink, Camille N.Y.

Abstract

What explains transit ridership? The answer to this simple question is both obvious and complex. Public transit systems carry large shares of person travel in older, larger metropolitan areas around the globe, but in most places – old and new, large and small – transit is losing market share to private vehicles. Nationally, only 2.1 percent of all trips were on public transit in 2001, compared to 85.8 percent by private vehicle, 9.9 percent by foot and bicycle, and 2.2 percent by other means (2001 National Household Travel Survey). Even the most casual observer of cities can offer informed speculation on why the share of year 2000 commuters using public transit in metropolitan San Francisco (19 percent) in nearly five times higher than in metropolitan Atlanta (4 percent). Population density, levels of private vehicle ownership, topography, freeway network extent, parking availability and cost, transit network extent and service frequency, transit fares, transit system safety and cleanliness, and so on all surely play a role. But the relatively importance of these various factors, and the interaction between them is not well understood. Yet understanding the relative influence of these factors is central to public policy debates over transportation system investments and the pricing and deployment of transit services. But the research literature on explaining transit ridership is surprisingly uneven, in some cases poorly conceived, and the results are often ambiguous or contradictory. The goal of this paper is to review the literature on explaining transit ridership, critique the sometimes significant weaknesses in previous studies, draw conclusions from the more rigorous studies on the factors which most influence transit use, and recommendations on the steps needed to better understand and explain transit ridership. To do this, we begin by offering a taxonomy of public transit ridership research.

Suggested Citation

  • Taylor, Brian D. & Fink, Camille N.Y., 2003. "The Factors Influencing Transit Ridership: A Review and Analysis of the Ridership Literature," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3xk9j8m2, University of California Transportation Center.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt3xk9j8m2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3xk9j8m2.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kain, John F. & Liu, Zvi, 1999. "Secrets of success: assessing the large increases in transit ridership achieved by Houston and San Diego transit providers," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 601-624.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Poudenx, Pascal, 2008. "The effect of transportation policies on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission from urban passenger transportation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 901-909, July.
    2. Chen, Cynthia & Chen, Jason & Barry, James, 2009. "Diurnal pattern of transit ridership: a case study of the New York City subway system," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 176-186.
    3. Fullerton, Thomas M. Jr & Walke, Adam G., 2012. "Border Zone Mass Transit Demand in Brownsville and Laredo," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 51(2).
    4. Diab, Ehab & Kasraian, Dena & Miller, Eric J. & Shalaby, Amer, 2020. "The rise and fall of transit ridership across Canada: Understanding the determinants," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 101-112.
    5. De Bruijn, Hans & Veeneman, Wijnand, 2009. "Decision-making for light rail," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 349-359, May.
    6. Shen, Qing & Chen, Peng & Pan, Haixiao, 2016. "Factors affecting car ownership and mode choice in rail transit-supported suburbs of a large Chinese city," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 31-44.
    7. Cynthia Chen & Don Varley & Jason Chen, 2011. "What Affects Transit Ridership? A Dynamic Analysis involving Multiple Factors, Lags and Asymmetric Behaviour," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(9), pages 1893-1908, July.
    8. Zhang, Dapeng & Wang, Xiaokun (Cara), 2014. "Transit ridership estimation with network Kriging: a case study of Second Avenue Subway, NYC," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 107-115.
    9. Berrebi, Simon J. & Watkins, Kari E., 2020. "Who’s ditching the bus?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 21-34.
    10. Miao, Qing & Welch, Eric W. & Sriraj, P.S., 2019. "Extreme weather, public transport ridership and moderating effect of bus stop shelters," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 125-133.
    11. Simone Borghesi & Chiara Calastri & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2014. "How do people choose their commuting mode? An evolutionary approach to transport choices," LEM Papers Series 2014/15, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    12. Currie, Graham & Delbosc, Alexa, 2011. "Understanding bus rapid transit route ridership drivers: An empirical study of Australian BRT systems," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 755-764, September.
    13. Xiaohong Chen & Xiang Wang & Hua Zhang & Jia Li, 2014. "The Diversity and Evolution Process of Bus System Performance in Chinese Cities: An Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(11), pages 1-17, November.
    14. Yao, Di & Xu, Liqun & Li, Jinpei, 2020. "Does technical efficiency play a mediating role between bus facility scale and ridership attraction? Evidence from bus practices in China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 77-96.
    15. Boisjoly, Geneviève & Grisé, Emily & Maguire, Meadhbh & Veillette, Marie-Pier & Deboosere, Robbin & Berrebi, Emma & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2018. "Invest in the ride: A 14 year longitudinal analysis of the determinants of public transport ridership in 25 North American cities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 434-445.
    16. John F. Kain, 2004. "A Pioneer's Perspective on the Spatial Mismatch Literature," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(1), pages 7-32, January.
    17. de Grange, Louis & González, Felipe & Muñoz, Juan Carlos & Troncoso, Rodrigo, 2013. "Aggregate estimation of the price elasticity of demand for public transport in integrated fare systems: The case of Transantiago," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 178-185.
    18. Chao-Fu Yeh & Ming-Tsung Lee, 2019. "Effects of Taichung bus policy on ridership according to structural change analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Small, Kenneth A, 2004. "6. Road Pricing And Public Transport," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 133-158, January.
    20. Ted Balaker & Cecilia Joung Kim, 2006. "Do Economists Reach a Conclusion On Rail Transit?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(3), pages 551-602, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt3xk9j8m2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.